The Cuckoo's Calling

I am a bit surprised by all the rave reviews and believe that if it wasn't written by Harry Potter's mother, it wouldn't be that raved about.

This is a average, as-to-be-expected, detective story. Model dies under suspicious circumstances, a detective down on his luck is hired to solve the crime. What is accomplished in 449 pages, could have been done in half of that. I kept waiting for some major twists and turns - they don't come. By page 200, I took a guess as to “who'd done it?” and by 400, I proved myself correct.

It will make a great movie adaptation for a summer flick - when nothing but fluff entertainment comes out. That is exactly what this is, fluff. It is an easy read, a page turner, and something you can get through in a long weekend, without thinking too hard about it.

What is disappointing, and because it is written by J.K. Rowling herself, is that it doesn't meet the hype or the creativity that, at least I have, come to expect to her. You won't be drawn into some parallel world of invention filled with a made up language or characters with rich back stories. And I think that's what I've come to expect from the woman who brought us Hogwarts... and if she can't transfer that style into another genre, then maybe I should refrain from reading it.